Oh, Canada

pawa up firstYou would think that Canada's music boom would have blown over by now. The place has been torn apart with hype ... but it has been about three years now since the Unicorns, Broken Social Scene, Metric, and all those "wolves" bands started to get play. So I don't think that Canada is just a temporary American fixation. Indeed, there are still plenty of new Canadian bands popping up, so I can't imagine how the place will ever be looked over again, even if the hype does die down. Pawa Up First has hooked me, and I just can't seem to find enough of their music. They're a quintet from Montreal whose style can most accurately be desribed as, um ... jazz mixed with dub mixed with indie-rock and movie scores. All of their stuff is instrumental, but it's trully fascinating to listen to as their instrumental rerepertoire is always expanding. Their debut CD, the Scenario, was released last year, but it's really rare, and I can't find any mp3s of it. Bummer. Their website has music and videos, though.
code pie
Next up we've got Code Pie which is like a jazzier Broken Social Scene. For some reason I thought Squirrel Nut Zippers when I first hear them, but that's not a very accurate comparison. Listen to Cement Truck, A Round For the Boys, and Gala.
kiss me deadlyLastly, we've got a band which has been receiving some hype as of late, Alien8's newest entry, Kiss Me Deadly, whose style I can't seem to be able to place (as usual). Kind of proggy and math-rocky, but also rather dance-inspired too. They've got a beat, but the vocals and atmospheric style of their playing make for a very unusal breed of "dance." Listen to Dance 1. It'd be nice if you all bought their new CD, Misty Medley, too ...